


Motions in the Dark

by TheCokeworthCauldrons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Lily Evans, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Bisexual Severus Snape, F/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19004878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCokeworthCauldrons/pseuds/TheCokeworthCauldrons
Summary: Lily’s growing awareness of her friends tips over into longing in her last year at Hogwarts. She visits the boys’ dormitory to wake Remus and finds him glittering, faceted, in the dark.





	Motions in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> For my peace of mind, all characters are written as of legal age.

She had meant to knock. In her defense, how could she have expected…and to walk in on…

Sirius, she would have expected. If she had walked so confidently into the seventh year Gryffindor boys’ dormitories, and saw some slice of flesh wedged between a Hufflepuff head of curls, she would be less surprised. She had, in fact, witnessed just such a thing, to Black’s eternally wicked amusement. He had thought he looked so dashing with a kill between his legs—the smug bastard.

Lily didn’t ever consider herself missish about these things, especially being Head Girl. She broke up a snog a night in the slow months. God help her, come spring.

James was not pleased, but neither was she.  Finding kids wrapped around each other had never been a joy. With her seventh year rolling into the bed of May, she would rather prepare for the real world hurtling her way.

But there the students would be, bare-arsed and thrashing. What could she do? She couldn’t stop a fling from happening, just take points, roll her eyes and leave. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to erase the sights. Spotty and flailing—ugh. 

Except that, some _were_ beautiful. She adored Mary MacDonald, and only as a friend. But finding the young woman flipped, kicking, and cackling, would creep up on her in the common room in a lull. Whenever Mary laughed, Lily saw her teeth, and for a second the girl would take flight, legs akimbo, like the old school witches who rode the devil across haunted skies.

Then she would blink, or Mary would close her mouth, and the vision would end with Lily slightly and unaccountably warm.

Lily never told James about how lovely their friends were after catching them unawares. She suspected he knew, in his own way, but never thought about it in those words.

Sharing a room with Sirius Black meant he _had_ to know—Black wouldn’t consider him a brother if he didn’t. And the way James would rib him, smack him on the back, lean into Black’s arm slung over  his shoulders while the disheveled dog grinned in his ear: James felt it. Hell, Lily felt it.

She figured it was just a way people stay animal, and she didn’t mind. The opposite, in fact. She would fight for her friends’ right to be sweet and lovely and proud of it. It was a facet of her love.

“Yeah, yes,” she had heard. The words slipped from the crack in the door, too soft to penetrate the wood. Lily stopped with her hand on the doorknob.

“Higher,” another voice murmured, low and rumbling. Bed springs creaked, once, with a dragging, heavy rasp of body on sheets. She could barely hear that a conversation was happening. The ruffling of disturbed curtains was about as suggestive as the sigh fluttering into an ‘umph’ that pushed her a step back from the doorway.

She felt the words in her stomach before she heard them. A voice, desperate and breathy and helpless, tied her guts up with sound. She took a deep breath, and shifted her weight, back then forward and back again. More words came, deep, like they were trolled out of something thick and sweet and—

The doorknob flew from her damp fingers. Lily staggered back, her free hand over her open mouth, already forming an apology. She had been _eavesdropping,_ Christ, but then she heard a stutter of an apology, and recognized the frantic, brown eyes above the blush.

“Bloody hell, Lily, what—this is!”

She slapped her other hand over her mouth and squeaked.

“Remus, I…was…,” but the boy was fidgeting and she was speechless, really. Scratches ran over his bare chest in sporadic pink welts, a rosette of a bruise on his neck molding into something harsh and mouth-shaped.

His eyes on her were dizzy and intense, like he had been ripped out of a wet sleep, and she wondered who had did it to him, before realizing how inappropriate of a thought it was. It wasn’t even for the sake of gossip that she was drawn to the spaces over his shoulders, because he was suddenly so very lovely, and she wanted details of the scene.

Was that him, sounding so lost a second ago? She had to know everything, said her pounding heart, telling herself some nonsense about this being the spice of life, and that they were running out of days to be this thrilling.

Remus stood in the door in his underwear, with his arms thrown across the door frame, blocking her view of the room. Someone hovered behind him: a glimpse of a dark head passing between the bedposts and the curtain. She looked down and saw shadows on the carpet, where the specter padded across the lamplight. It was during dinner, and she had ran up to the dorms to grab James’ bag.

“Quietly, though. Moony’s sleeping,” James told her. She asked, worried, if their friend was getting sick again.

“This early?” She couldn’t believe it, and James could only shrug and blame stress, or the weather. For months now, Remus had receded into the dorms, begging off meals. He was more of a House ghost now than Sir Nicolas, and she—they, James and all—were resigned to it.  

That was barely ten minutes ago. Meanwhile, in the Tower, apparently the world was different.

Her friend, so meek and funny and understated, had surprisingly full lips. He more than shocked her with his shirt off. The scars, the jut of his collarbone, the bites and the shine, and he was so _hairy,_ despite being thin and average-height. Like a pet of a man, and while he panted, his stomach twitched. He smelled flushed and sweaty. He might have been sick if not for all the color in his face, his chest, his legs even, and his company.

“I am so sorry,” Lily mumbled, whipping her eyes back up to his face. He looked in shock.

The person behind Remus shuffled, like they were trying to gather their things in a hurry. She swayed to one side, until a peek sneaked her way. The dark head was draped in black hair, hair that spilled past ears and parted over the bent neck and hung past the shoulders and down the skinny back. She—

Lily gasped so hard, she squeaked again. Oh god, oh _god._

“ _Severus,”_ she coughed, kept coughing—she was choking on her own spit. Severus Snape was—in—Remus’ room humid, and hair stuck to the Slytherin’s forehead when he spun around, caught in his robe.

Terrified, the boy was terrified, he wouldn’t even make eye contact with her—Severus!?—he was pale as fish skin in the bad lighting, he was waif-like without his over-sized clothes, he was _long,_ his limbs stretched out of his thin torso, his hipbones could cut glass, and between them it was so dark, it was like there was nothing above where the robe was clutched, just black enough to sink into the floor, _god, Severus._

Her former best friend, the boy she knew since she was ten, grew out of the carpet like a statue of a man. He looked nothing like James, or Sirius, or even scrawny Remus. Severus was abstract, as shapes like ribs and feet and a play of contrasts fused together under a name she avoided saying.

Seeing him in the halls was like noticing a symptom of things changing, more than it was a recognition of an old friend. He was always skinny, she could see, and he became frightening even in broad daylight, when he had a shade of color that made him human, if not compassionate.

She did not think about what he looked like much, though; and now she was _looking_ , almost completely without intending to.

There was so much to see that she wasn’t even absorbing all of it, just standing there while Remus explained and Severus stared at her.

He was real, too real! He had been touched so hard that blood pooled under his skin and he was decorated, from his neck to the cradle of his hips. His mouth was red, gash-like as always but pressed upon. He had _bit_ Remus—he had—

“What is he doing here,” she demanded. Lily blinked, surprised at her own voice. Distractedly, she listened to the silence her question brought forth. Nobody was answering her.

“…Well?” She crossed her arms, feeling her face was still much to open, but trying to scowl. She wanted to look disapproving. She mostly just felt feverish. And shaky.

She balled her fists and tucked them against the crooks of her elbows. She firmed up her a lips a bit, because when Remus’ mouth fell open to respond, it looked slack and abused, and she could see his tongue; while behind him, Severus crawled into his uniform, elbows pointing every which way until it all fell straight, fingers pointing to the ground, and he was still and art-like and watching her and she was frazzled.

“Get out!”

She had no idea why she was shouting, why her voice had gone so high, but Remus winced and nodded and sagged.

Looking kicked, he glanced around at Severus and shrugged, and Merlin help her, the other wizard tilted his head and narrowed his eyes and didn’t go anywhere. He was dressed to leave, but he didn’t yet, and Lily had expected him to turn either to stone or mist minutes ago, so she was spiraling into confusion, and only felt hotter for it.

Why was he doing this to her?

“Leave,” she snapped at him, angry now, “You aren’t supposed to be here, Snape. I don’t even know—and this—get out of Gryffindor or I’m getting McGonagall. O-or it’s detention!”

Her opinion of herself took a blow. God, how feeble. Look at him, she thought to herself, and she did, and he was stock-still and pulling her apart with his beetle-black eyes, like he was planning something. He looked so cold— _with his clothes on,_ she couldn’t help but think and it made her furious.

But detention: he clearly didn’t care. And he didn’t stride out, brushing past her, treating her like she was beneath his notice like any of his friends.

Because even if he could stare her in her face after being caught out and felt on–self-assured as any Death Eater–he was Severus, which meant he was strange in every definition.

“Fine,” Severus replied.

It bubbled out of his chest and dropped unto her from on-high, that voice. It had sunken into some dark tar, sucked at the bottoms of her shoes, glued her to the doorway. When had that happened? When was the last time she had listened to him talk just for her to hear? He sounded poisonous.

“ _Higher,”_ she recalled.

And she relived the shuddering breath it pulled from Remus, like the Gryffindor had wanted to cry. And Remus could break out of that tiny spell, because Lily had a made a noise as well, she realized, from the same tight nook in her throat. What had hoisted up when Sev said that? She imagined what.

Her knees felt weak.

Was it the contrast of the thought that had her this way? When Severus walked past, not touching her even with the hem of his robe, she jerked. She felt his thumb bump into her wrist, and heard him breathing.

Say something, she threw at him in her mind. Aloud? He had frozen and looked down at her from the corner of his eye. His profile was as sour and beaky as always, but still, his mouth was red.

“What,” he challenged. He did it wrong. He wasn’t using his voice like he had just a minute ago.

Lily scowled. She was cooling, and it disturbed her on a level she couldn’t ignore. Habit made her disregard Severus for this long, and now look. She was fully unaware of the things the boy was capable of.

He attempted to raise an eyebrow, but somehow, it caved into a frown. Lily traded her scowl for a glare, and then, for some reason, felt it sting and turn to water. Shit, she was tearing up.

Seeing him there, about to leave, all rigid and glum, upset her. After that flash-bang of life in him, of animal nature, she felt like he had briefly intersected with her in some ungainly way. Like the way water boils from proximity to fire. He had been lovely.

She felt lovely, just to be overcome in seeing him. She wanted to touch him, actually, which was scarier than knowing he was touchable.

But at that moment, they were cold to each other. And might be forever. And she hated it.

“Say something, you stupid idiot,” Lily said. She ran a thumb along her waterline, rubbing in the tears.

Severus blinked, and inclined his head. He was looking down at her, but she knew the expression: he was  confused. Like when they were twelve and she told him about “ _like_ liking” someone. He had information but no clue what to do with it.

“What am I supposed to say,” he asked. It didn’t sound like a question, but it was. His eyes flicked up, over his shoulder, and she remembered Remus.

She flushed, mortified. What was she talking about…even if he wasn’t…even if he was a person, still, he was _Remus’_ person, and—

“Lupin, let me borrow your room for a minute,” she said.

_She_ said?

Both she and Severus traded looks, shocked. His mouth was open. She could see his sharp, crooked teeth. She felt strange. The facts of him made her strange. Lupin hesitated and moved out of the way. She heard the floorboards cream, and bare feet travel the carpet. The air from the warm bedroom washed over them.

She stepped inside, tight as a bowstring, begging to be unwound.


End file.
